Between the Lines
by indigo's ocean
Summary: If I held you long enough, would you melt?" mild Matt x Near, for the LJ 30 hugs challenge
1. Collide

**Between the Lines**

Matt's feelings for Near aren't at all straightforward. And, come to think of it, they probably never will be. (mild Matt x Near, for the LJ 30 hugs challenge)

--

_#5 - Collide_

Matt's feelings for Near aren't at all straightforward, and he will often get them confused with his feelings for other things. Like... silence. Winter. Near is the hushed stillness of the winter morning when the world wakes up to a blanket of freshly fallen snow. The moment when everything holds its breath, and you can never be more alone. And that... is Near.

It's like- All this time he has been in love with an ideal. The ideal of contemplation, of isolation, of holding yourself so far beyond the world that its concerns cease to involve you. A type of self-sustaining loneliness that isn't lonely at all. More like... loneliness without the L. One-liness.

A lot of times, Matt wishes he could stop being embroiled in all the petty confusions and miseries of daily life. To rise above it - that's what he wants. But instead, he's continuously being pulled back to earth. By Mello, by school, by his duties - he's bound in so many places that he doesn't know where the world ends and _he_ begins.

Distance would be easier. That's what he loves - the thought that he could make himself far away. Far from the drudgery, the heartbreak.

Then being alone wouldn't hurt so much. Then he wouldn't need to reach out to people, or pull back as soon as they reached back. He would be satisfied with his own company. That's what he wants. He wants to be that nearly silent breath of wind that ghosts over the morning snow, ruffling it but never leaving any marks, never breaking that quiet. He wants to be solitude. He's in love with solitude.

Solitude is... Near.

But at the same time, he is in love with Near for _himself_. The white hair, the pale skin, the dark, secretive eyes - they fascinate him, draw him in and hold him when he tries to look away. Matt wonders what makes the boy tick, what he thinks when he completes his puzzle over and over again. Why he plays with his toys and has a closet full of them in his room. How he manages to be so bloody smart and not even look like he's working at it.

He loves the way Near's feathery hair feels when he runs it through his fingers. He hates the way Near will never allow him close, how he is so wrapped up in his own isolation that to let someone else in would be sacrilege. He loves it too, though.

It's complicated. His feelings, that is. And it gets even worse when those feelings collide - when he's holding Near in his arms and letting their heartbeats mingle, when he feels the rise and fall of Near's chest with every breath the boy takes, when he runs his hands over Near's back and feels the play of skin and muscle, reminding him that Near is _not_ an ethereal being but a living, breathing human.

His love is incompatible with itself. He cannot have silence if he holds a heartbeat within his arms. He cannot have isolation when he is embracing a human being. He cannot have solitude when he has Near.

But Near is solitude.

It's terrible, Matt thinks, when the person you love and the idea you love collide, and you can't even begin to make sense of either. But really, _honestly_, he wouldn't have it any other way.

--

So the themes for this are from the 30hugs community on livejournal, and we're not required to do them in order. Thus, this is more like a collection of discrete one-shots rather than a continuous, multi-chaptered story. The only thing they will have in common is a penchant for angst and a hug, metaphorical or literal, real or imagined. Reviews are always appreciated.

Oh, and there was a little quote from ee cummings in here, too. (But I won't blame you if you don't find it.)


	2. Teddy Bear

**Between the Lines**

Matt's feelings for Near aren't at all straightforward. And, come to think of it, they probably never will be. (mild Matt x Near, for the LJ 30 hugs challenge)

_--_

_#4 - Teddy Bear_

The coming of November fills Matt with a nameless dread and he doesn't know why.

No, that's a lie. He does know why. And Roger knows why, and maybe L knows - or knew. And Mello... Mello probably guessed, a long time ago. But they don't talk about it, and Matt's glad they don't talk about it. The month - November - the -

It's like a scabbed-over wound, like, it's never going to get better and if it does it's going to leave a gigantic scar, all pink and raised and nasty and all. A scar that hurts on rainy days, or -

Whatever.

_Whatever_.

_Please_ -

And it's almost like a ritual to him, to go the living room, cold in the middle of the night - numb; numb November - and curl up on the couch and stare silently at the floor to ceiling windows. The sky outside the orphanage is dark and velvety, but the winter stars are cold and twinkle with a light that isn't sympathetic at all.

If Matt were a poetic kind of person, he'd say that they hurt, like icicles or little stabbing shards of glass. But he's not a poet. He's just a little boy now, and dwarfed by the immensity of a month that coats the windowpanes with ice but none of the soft fluffy snow, a month where the days get shorter and there aren't any pretty Christmas lights to take it away. He knows it will always be too big for him.

For thirty days, he can act, you know, _all right_ during the day.

At night, though - it starts crushing him until the air is squeezed from his lungs and he feels like he's suffocating and the only thing left to do is bring his knees up to his chest and huddle. Alone. (But... he never cries. So that's what he'd tell Mello if Mello ever asked. _I don't cry_.)

Still, though. Still.

November is an impossible month. It's only the first of the month and he already feels like dying, the old worn velvet of the couch cushion pressing into his cheek, cutting off his breath with dust and mold and the perfumey scent of spray-on air freshener.

There's a shuffling, hesitant step. "Matt?"

He doesn't reply. Doesn't even attempt it. He just - can't.

"Matt?"

The far end of the couch tilts down like a weight was placed on it, like someone is sitting. But they can't be - they can't, it's the middle of the night and they...

"Can't..." Matt croaks, burying his head even deeper into the musty fabric. "Can't."

There's a light touch on his ankle. A feather. Something less then a feather. A little scrap of air falling from the sky and landing on him before drifting away. Then no more touches, and silence.

But it's not the same kind of silence, not the all-encompassing, crushing, _deafening_ silence that there was before. This silence is more benign, friendlier, and after a while he finds that he can actually breathe without feeling as if his lungs will burst.

He inhales and exhales slowly, several times, savoring the slightly chilled air and wondering at the sudden lightness in his chest. There's still someone - something - at the end of the couch, silent. Waiting. When Matt actually ventures a glance up through the sheltering barricade of his arms, he sees white.

"Near?"

The sofa shifts; there's a pause. "Yes."

Trying to dredge up words, small talk - it's hard after spending such a long time screaming wordlessly into the deafening silence of his mind. "Why are... It's after lights out, isn't it?"

Of course it is. Silence. He tries again. "Why are you, uh, up so late?" Though it might be after midnight so he adds, "Or early, I suppose."

Through his fringe of dusky red hair, Matt can see Near look at him with those dark, soulless eyes and then look away, gazing vaguely towards the door. "I could not sleep."

"Oh." He forces an awkward laugh. "Me neither."

Then, suddenly, Near's gaze is on him again and it's _staying_, it's there, fixed, and all of a sudden the weight of November comes crashing back down on him with enough force to drive the breath from his chest. "There is something wrong," Near states, and Matt feels the truth of it throughout his body.

"It's November."

"And so...?"

Matt attempts a grin that turns out like a tight and painful grimace. "So there's always something wrong."

No reply. The dusty couch creaks again and Matt's too busy burying his face in his arm to see Near padding silently across the common room and through the door. He _knows_, though, because he hears the shuffling footsteps and the small _click_ when the handle moves back in place. It's a wonder he can hear anything at all.

So he's alone again. Like always. But it's worse than it was before, almost as bad as it was when -

_Mom... mom..._

_Mommy, please_ -

The door opens again but Matt can't bear to look. He's biting his lip so hard it almost cuts through the numbness and actually hurts. His face is pressed so hard into the cushion he contemplates the possibility of suffocation. But he won't die, he knows. Can't.

Just like he can't -

"Here." Near's voice is the same as usual, cold and remote and emotionless. But the word makes Matt drag himself up from whatever hell he's thrown himself into, look up.

What he sees - If it were a better time, he would maybe burst out into laughter. Instead, he just kind of stares. "It's a... stuffed animal."

Near averts his eyes. "It was a present. I... never used it."

Matt doesn't doubt that. But - "Why?"

"Take it."

"Wha -"

The white furred bear is practically dropped into his lap. "I heard," Near says, as though talking is almost as painful for him as it is for Matt at the moment, "that... they help. Sometimes."

"Sometimes..." Matt repeats, forcing his arms to move and pick up the toy. Its eyes are glassy and brown and staring off somewhere, unseeing. Its dead-looking expression makes him cringe a bit, inside. "They help."

"I believe you hug it," Near prompts, waiting there. His hair is white and his clothes are white and his face is white and he's white white white just like the bear. He's drawn his arms up to his chest almost like he's cold and Matt can see his fingertips. He looks at them for a little while then obediently wraps his arms around the bear.

It feels weird - silky, faux fur texture and clumped up stuffing underneath. Matt's not so caught up in everything that he forgets common courtesy. "Thank you," he says automatically.

"You're welcome," and their little gestures and politenesses are meaningless, really, in the way they mean it but _don't_. "Keep it."

Now Near's gone, leaving, trailing out of the room and for the first time Matt sees his feet are bare and just as white as the rest of him. He looks at the teddy bear, trails its fingers along its slightly dusty fur. Even though Near says he never used it, the toy still carries his clean, human scent.

Matt draws his knees up to his chest and leans back onto the couch, hugging the bear to his chest and burying his nose in its fur.

It's still November - it's always been November - but somehow...

Somehow, it's not so bad anymore.

--

Um. This one's weird. Meant to have it done by the first of November but... you know how it is. And, hey, it's only twenty-three days late.


	3. Ice

_#11 - Ice_

Matt thinks sometimes that they're all frozen in their own personal hells. Walking through the hallways with their eyes staring at something _else_, something that isn't the scuffed tile and hardwood and worn out carpet, or the peeling wallpaper or fresh coat of paint or tarnished doorknobs. They're all somehow beyond the _here_ and _now_ - though maybe he's an idiot and they're all just thinking about their grades, or their ranks, or whatever the hell else they think about. He's not sure. He's never sure.

Of course, Near is just like the rest of them when he shuffles through the hallways. His eyes are distant, and usually directed at the ground. And he walks with that little shuffle step, like he's trying to keep those pajama pants from falling down or something.

_Shuff-shuff-step_, _shuff-shuff-step_. Something like that.

His socks make little scuffing noises when he walks on the tile in the kitchen and Matt will find himself watching from his seat at the table, ignoring his waffles in favor of his Gameboy. 'Course, Near never notices. If he did, the world would seem somehow off-kilter, tilted in the wrong direction.

Near and Mello notice nothing, and so Matt can pretend to be the one who sees it all.

(Number three - at Whammy's that's a ways away from the top and sometimes he thinks it gives him some kind of clarity, like he can see things everyone else can't, and that makes him wonder what it would like to be the lowest ranked.)

He figures he's still a couple steps from reading Mello's mind, though. And Near's mind -

That's going to be a blank to him. Forever. Near's dark eyes - they don't look like anything. Except maybe hell.

"Frozen," Matt muses as the Gameboy plays the little jingle that lets him know he's lost the race. As if he didn't know already. Near's heart - "Frozen solid."

But not in a bad way, like how it reminds him of _A Christmas Carol_ and all those shows about the mean old man who snaps at everyone until they force him to have a change of heart. Not at all. Near's not old, even though his hair's white in a really strange way, and he doesn't snap. He just looks at you with those _frozen _eyes.

He ducks behind the refrigerator door for a moment, and Matt says it louder. "Frozen. Like ice."

That's what Near's like, he thinks suddenly. On TV, one day, he was watching a show about frogs. And it said they would go to sleep for all of winter in a block of ice, and when spring came and it all melted they would just hop away and find something to eat, like nothing had happened. That's what Near's like. Except he's been frozen for a long time.

(Matt remembers when he was little and the Christmas lights were like halos around the door when it opened and brought in a gust of snow and a small white boy clinging to L's fingers like a snowflake had fallen in human form, except snowflakes wouldn't have those dull, dead eyes.)

When Near straightens, he's holding a carton of orange juice with both hands, though Matt can only see his fingers peeking out from under his sleeves. He thinks he should help, maybe, because Near's so small and so icy cold (frozen) that he might break if he reaches to high in the cupboard to get one of the nice glass cups. If the glass fell it would shatter like ice, and if Near fell he would shatter like the glass.

He's halfway up from his seat when Near opens the dishwasher and gets a clean cup from there.

The orange juice is a weird kind of brightness against his pale skin.

He drinks it one sip at a time and his eyes are still cold. He's not like Matt; orange juice doesn't make him smile or make him sick. It's just a drink. And it's cold, so it won't help.

"_Frozen_," Matt says emphaticaly, impatient. He's talking to Near. Or at least, he's trying to.

"What is?" Near asks finally in his quiet whisper voice. It's not that he's shy, it's just that he doesn't bother talking loudly. The exact opposite of Mello, really.

"You are."

At first, Matt's not sure if he actually says it, but then he realizes he's shutting his mouth and the words have escaped somehow, and Near's looking disinterested in that way that clearly says he doesn't care and why isn't Matt with Mello like he's supposed to be?

"You really are," Matt says. "Really."

Near swallows the last of his orange juice, gives Matt another look - a blank one this time, no emotion, and Matt nearly shivers at the weight of the cold. "I'm sorry," he says.

Roger told Matt that 'I'm sorry' doesn't mean anything unless you _really mean it_. And Near doesn't _really mean it_, at all.

"'S all right," Matt replies. "My fault, anyway." Though it's not, really.

And Near gives him that _whatever_ look again. _Whatever_, now go away, he's saying with his eyes. But he's the one that goes away first, with his socks making that scuffing noise again. _Shuff-shuff-step_, _shuff-shuff-step_. Just like that.

Matt watches as he walks out of the kitchen. Slow, like an invalid, a sick person; slow like his joints have been frozen and still can't thaw out.

"I wonder," Matt says, but he knows he doesn't say the next words out loud:

_If I held you long enough, would you melt?_


End file.
